#ugh I didn't see this before

[sevenlersiniz]

You turn on the light.

[kittyandco]

does anyone else get so upset when you think about all the things that happened to your f/o... all the things they went through? all the things they haven't healed from? the pain that they may still be enduring? how you can do your best to help them but you can't protect them from everything. so you just love them the ways they needed before, how they deserved. and you see them happy because they finally accept, at least in some ways, that they do deserve it. they deserve love like all beings do

[mamawasatesttube]

fandom and all its """kon resents clark""" this and """clark is mean to/mistrusts kon""" that. actually, kon canonically goes to clark to bitch about his rogues gallery:

"Superboy's told me all about this guy."

(adventures of superman #533)

can you imagine? he just calls up superman to talk shit about scavenger (and presumably others too!!). i just know he's lounging midair in the most ridiculous poses while slurping up a milkshake he made clark buy him and spouting ridiculous teen slang that clark has to make several mental notes to look up later. this is the mark of a truly beautiful family bond and i, for one, would like to see more of it.

[pretendthisisaname]

Sure hope this isn't some kind of foreshadowing

[schnaf]

22 days until jooyeon's 22nd birthday

day 10 - maniac

[tarobumma]

there are so many things u can say about the goldfinch (2019) movie but my personal nitpick of it that i will never get over is how they made kitsey not wear the emerald earrings at the engagement party. i feel like its such a small but important moment in characterising her and theo’s relationship. 

it takes place after theo confronts kitsey about cheating, so at this point they’re both fully aware how much of an act their relationship/engagement is, and how much they both don’t love each other, at least not the way they should. 

theres something so uncharacteristically tender about it. i truly think this is the only moment of actual real understanding and vulnerability between them. the fact that kitsey chooses to wear them, even though she was right - they don’t suit her - but she’s decided that the fact that they mean something to theo is more important. 

for kitsey, willingly choosing something that blemishes her perfect appearance is so at odds to what we’ve seen of her until now. kitsey’s entire reason for being in a sham relationship with theo is to do with keeping up appearances. 

i think people tend to overlook that kitsey is also dealing with a lot of trauma (in recently losing andy and her dad) and i just feel that this tiny excerpt lifts so much weight in characterising and deepening our perspective of her and her relationship with theo. 

in wearing the earrings, kitsey is acknowledging theo’s vulnerabilities, and i almost feel that in recognising his grief and loss, she exposes her own. and its so fascinating because really this shared experience is what binds them, but is the one thing they never directly acknowledge. this is their one moment of actual honest tenderness and transparency towards each other, and i also love how its immediately followed by everyone at the engagement party interpreting it as a romantic moment and being like, ‘omg finally the happy couple interacting!’ and taking photos of them, etc. the reader is immediately taken out of the intimacy of the moment and swept back into the glaringly contrasting performativity and facade of their relationship. 

[sagau-my-beloved]

So this took me way too long...

I didn’t add the wings/hood thing because I actually do value my own sanity, and also his shoulders, but I might add it in later once some of that has replenished

Anyway enjoy Archon outfit Venti

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[a-shadowedvales]

when jane's powers return in season four (and because they were regained by her confronting and accepting her past, rather than being retraumatised with it!) they're stronger than they ever were. when she starts getting a handle back on them, she very quickly comes to realise not only have they affected her, but her mother, too. one of the biggest losses that came about with her losing them was the fact that she could no longer visit terry in the void; while there was no real communication there, it did allow jane to sit with her, and gain a little more connection than she could in the real world. when she first visits the void after their return, it takes her three hours to find terry, something that is both unexpected and incredibly worrying. but when she does, it's something of a miracle. jane's increased strength and control over the void actually wakes terry up from her catatonic state, but only in the void. there's no way to help her mother physically, but she does do so (unbeknownst to her) mentally. terry is reborn in jane's newfound control over the vale of shadows; she becomes the woman she once was, and while her body remains frozen in a "good dream", her mind connected to jane's own allows her some freedom. jane is able to speak to her mother in the void, is able to be held by her, and while it's still unfair and jane cannot stay in there forever, it's something. this only lasts for about eight months, as each visit slowly begins deteriorating terry's physical and mental state, and jane's health begins declining after spending hours upon hours in the void each and every day.

when jane finds out these visits are actually killing her mother on the outside, she deems to stop, but terry expresses the importance of them being able to speak, that she'd prefer to die on the outside, if it meant she could have just a few months with her daughter like this. terry and jane's connection was always so strong, which ultimately led to terry "waking up" in the void, but even jane's newfound strength cannot save her from the harsh realities. each visit nearing the end of those eight months, terry fades more and more, becomes weaker in the void, and her real body eventually gives up. jane's in the void when her mother eventually passes on, and physically feels their connection weaken, like some part of her suddenly becomes lost in the shadows, a part she'll never find again. jane falls into a depressive state for weeks after her mother's death, given she's technically lost her a second time, but soon comes to realise she was lucky to have even shared those eight months together. it was better than nothing at all. there is a proper burial and funeral, (and when jane dies, she's buried next to her mother) which allows jane some sense of closure. she never fully recovers from losing terry, nor from the fact that she never had a proper relationship with her, but she does eventually find some peace with it all.

[aeolianblues]

I'm not an extrovert. At all. In everyday life, I'm a yapper, sure, but I need someone to first assure me I am okay to yap, so I don't start conversations, even when I really want to join in sometimes! It's just the social anxiety acting up. God knows where from and why I lose a lot of my inhibitions when it comes to talking to people about music. I don't know where the confidence has suddenly sprung from. I've made a crazy amount of friends in musical circles, either just talking to people about common music or (since it is after all in music circles) talking to bands about their own music. I let out a sigh of relief any time an interaction goes well, because in truth it's going against my every instinct. I wish I could do that in everyday life

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[pyjamacryptid]

sorry if this is annoying and you can delete if you want could i just ask how is the bbc meerlin _ live commentary series comingg along?

Oh my gosh no I would never delete this, it made my day! <3 I love hearing that people love it and are still interested in it!!! In fact, I'm going to @ Mac and Kit because they love it too. Hey losers (affectionate) @1kitwonder @macaritaville Yeah, I haven't updated it in a loooong while, that's on me lol. We finished ages ago! It's just that yours truly got distracted/lost motivation with finishing the commentary series. But, good news, your ask prompted me to start finishing the next episode!

To tide you over until I post that, have an outtake:

[masterpost for BBC Merlin Live Commentary by Ren & Friends]

[leqclerc]

[soul-engraver]

Just some screenshots of my character I made via NVIDIA Ansel

[keets-writing-corner]

I FINALLY GOT CHAPTER 2 UP

Here's chapter 1 if anyone missed that one

gawd it took me so long I'm so sorry! In my defense it's double the length of chapter 1. Here's a little preview

It started with a boom that rivaled thunder. 

Lilith jumped awake in the dead of night, heart pounding. Around her, animals were chittering, panicked. There was an energy, a tension in the air. She couldn’t quite understand what it was or what was happening. She still could find no source of the noise that had awoken her. 

Another boom rattled the air, followed by actual thunder. Both were accompanied by blinding light from the sky above. The ground beneath her shook, and the plants rattled their leaves. 

Lilith stood and began to run. She could barely see what was going on through the canopy of the trees, but she was determined to figure out what was going on. Normally at night, she wouldn’t have been able to see anything. But with every crash, every shake, every boom, the sky lit up with different colors and illuminated her path. 

When she finally reached a clearing, her suspicions were confirmed but her questions remained unanswered. 

The sky above her was in turmoil. The clouds churned and danced around each other, trying to crush each other and melting into each other. They tugged and pulled, ripped and teared away at each other. Lights would flash from behind them with their deafening booms. It looked like the end of days. 

The only experience Lilith had that was even remotely akin to this was light rain, but mostly only because it’d be cloudy with distant thunder. This-... This was something else completely.

Lilith watched transfixed. Hoping maybe at some point it would let up or fade. But it wouldn’t. At most there would be a longer stretch of seconds between the next flash of light than other times, but it never waned. 

Soon, the battle of the sky stretched into the daytime, distorting the colors of the sunrise around it to a violent red before eventually giving way to day. The clouds remained dark, and heavy, sometimes even black at times. 

Lilith had hoped that during the day it would make more sense, or be less frightening. Instead, what she saw was only worse. 

“Lilith!” a voice called to her, and she turned. Eve was beckoning her, “Come on! I know you don’t like Adam much, but don’t be alone in this!” 

Lilith glanced at the sky one last time before running over to Eve. 

Eve was right. As annoying as Adam was, being alone with that chaos reigning above her would be worse. It seemed however, whatever it was that was happening, was also rattling Adam. For once, he took on a more protective role over the two women, trying to comfort them. 

They spent the day together eating the fruits of Eden, and sitting together looking at the sky. 

When the sun started to set, the sky was still rumbling and booming. The lights distorted the clouds into monstrous shapes before immediately destroying them and then creating more shapes.

“What in Eden’s name is going on??” Adam hissed under his breath. “Is this going to last all night too?” 

It did. 

None of them got much sleep. 

It lasted all throughout the next day as well. And the next night, and the day after that. 

It never rained, and the wind only minorly picked up, as if down below on Eden was completely separate to what was happening above. Lilith eventually grew weary of Adam once again and broke off to be by herself. Clearly, whatever was happening wasn’t about to hurt her. 

Finally, after seven days and seven nights, when the dawn was breaking through the thickness of night, there was a sickening sound that started off as a crackle but devolved into a rattle as a single light flared in the sky and then jortled across it. 

The sky went quiet as that single light began to fall, a smaller piece of it broke off and went on its own trail. 

Lilith could only watch in morbid fascination as the streak of light fell, and when it hit the earth, the ground itself shook, rippling out in waves as if it had turned liquid. 

Lilith grabbed onto a tree for stability as all the animals screeched around her. 

Then it settled. 

The ground no longer shook.

The sky was silent and still. 

Looking up at it however, in the exact trace of the light, the edges of the clouds had been ripped apart, and the sunrise was making it glow an angry red. The air was uncomfortably chilly. It felt as if something had been irrevocably changed.

___________________

And here's the link again for the full thing

[babacontainsmultitudes]

[just venting a bit into the void you understand you understand 😌] Lately I've been feeling very caught between "I have a lot of thoughts on Sparrow and Normal and all that with the ending and teen talk and feel like I need to get them out and voice them for my own piece of mind and resolution" and "I am lacking the strength and energy to actually sit down and write it all out and kind of really just want to fully move on to other things (AUs, fics, anything else)" but my brain can't seem to commit to either and that's quite frustrating cause it's just left me very restless. *Sigh*. Idk! Just needed to complain about that a bit ig, it's silly but this is what has been ailing me as of late.